Digital Commons Network^™

An Examination Of Differences In Division I Fbs Student-Athlete Academic And Athletic Performance, Marissa Katherine Nichols

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The student-athlete literature if rife with studies that examine the factors that appear to improve or inhibit academic or athletic performance. However, internal characteristics that may influence variations in performance have been understudied, and athletic performance tends to be examined separately from academic performance. This study examined how different types of Division I FBS performers – high academic, high athletic; high academic, low athletic; low athletic, high academic; and low academic, low athletic – differ on three theoretical and conceptual frameworks representing internal factors. Each of the frameworks, Mindset, Personal Growth Initiative, and Student-Athlete Experiences, have positive attributes relative to …

A Rural And Urban Study Of The Food Environment In Select Nevada Geographies, Joseph Nickelson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

National and county level examination of urban and rural food environments has taken place, but primary validation of venue existence and in-venue data are lacking. The literature show disparities in access to healthy foods through low density of large grocers/supermarkets, low variety and quality of produce and higher prices for a healthy diet in rural versus urban geographies. Rural areas are of unique concern due to poor health indicators such as higher obesity rates, higher diabetes rates, lower incomes and lower educations than urban residents. The goal of this study was to explore differences in the community and consumer level …

Success In Online Credit Recovery: Factors Influencing Student Academic Performance, David Nourse

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Recent estimates show nearly 90% of school districts nationwide offer some form of online credit recovery. Additionally, credit recovery services have become one of the fastest growing areas of educational software. Despite the widespread adoption of these programs, there is a lack of scholarly research on the effectiveness, rigor, and suitability of online credit recovery. Given the popularity of online credit recovery and the mixed results that these programs have received, more study is imperative.

Currently there is a dearth of research surrounding the suitability of online credit recovery for students. Much of the research conducted on virtual schooling indicates …

Effects Of Explicit-Reflective Instruction On Preservice And Novice Teachers’ Epistemic And Conceptual Change Mediated By Reasoning, Danny Murphy

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Teachers’ beliefs shape their daily instruction and the materials presented to students. The personal views of educators are especially relevant when socioscientific issues are involved. Preservice and novice teachers’ mastery of the nature of science (NOS) and personal beliefs in and out of the classroom influence their worldviews and classroom practices. Although research has been conducted regarding conceptual change and epistemic change, it is not understood how conceptual change and epistemic change affect instructional practice. The purpose of the mixed methods explanatory sequential study was to determine how students in a science methods classroom think and reason with explicit and …

Advanced Applications Of Big Data Analytics, Sai Phani Krishna Parsa

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Human life is progressing with advancements in technology such as laptops, smart phones, high speed communication networks etc., which helps us by reducing load in doing our daily activities. For instance, one can chat, talk, make video calls with his/her friends instantly using social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, WhatsApp etc. LinkedIn, Indeed, etc., connects employees with potential employers. The number of people using these applications are increasing day-by-day, and so is the amount of data generated from these applications. Processing such vast amounts of data, may require new techniques for gaining valuable insights. Network theory concepts form …

Synthesis, Characterization And Biological Studies Of Technetium-99m And Rhenium-188 Peptides, Vanessa Anne Sanders

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Radiopharmaceuticals are very powerful diagnostic tools for evaluation of a host of medical conditions. These drugs are labeled with radioactive isotopes, which are utilized to create pictures of areas of interest through absorption of the drug. They are currently in high demand due to their ability to image areas that traditional imaging devices cannot. The radioisotope 99mTc, with a half-life of 6.01 hours and a 140 keV gamma emission, is central to many radiopharmaceutical compounds. This isotope is easily obtained from a 99Mo-99mTc generator, through beta decay and column chromatography separations. Very little technetium, less than 6 ng, is needed …

Novel Methods For The Time-Dependent Maxwell’S Equations And Their Applications, Sidney Shields

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation investigates three different mathematical models based on the time domain Maxwell's equations using three different numerical methods: a Yee scheme using a non-uniform grid, a nodal discontinuous Galerkin (nDG) method, and a newly developed discontinuous Galerkin method named the weak Galerkin (WG) method. The non-uniform Yee scheme is first applied to an electromagnetic metamaterial model. Stability and superconvergence error results are proved for the method, which are then confirmed through numerical results. Additionally, a numerical simulation of backwards wave propagation through a negative-index metamaterial is given using the presented method. Next, the nDG method is used to simulate …

Deep Learning Implementation For Comparison Of User Reviews And Ratings, Nishit Shrestha

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Sentiment Analysis is the task of identifying and classifying the sentiment expressed in a piece of text as of positive or negative sentiment and has wide application in E-Commerce. In present time, most e-commerce websites have product review sections, which can be used to identify customer satisfaction/dissatisfaction for their product. In E-COMMERCE websites such as Amazon.com, E-bay.com etc, consumers can submit their reviews along with a specific polarity rating (e.g. 1 to 5 stars at Amazon.com). There is a possibility of mismatch between review submitted and polarity of rating. For Amazon.com, a customer can submit a strongly positive review but …

De-Colonizing Language Needs: A Critical Ethnographic Study Of Former And Current Teachers’ Language Dispositions And How Taking A Multicultural Education Course Mediates Those Dispositions, Ravijot Singh

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this critical ethnographic research was to examine how taking a Multicultural Education course mediated teachers’ language dispositions. Particularly, this study examined how language and culture have a profound connection that is largely unrecognized in the American education system, and how lack of respect for the home language of students by their teachers leads to negative attitudes towards the children and impedes students’ academic progress.

This study used a theoretical and conceptual framework that incorporate intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991) as its research paradigm to understand the interaction and overlapping roles of language and culture in society, and how neoliberal …

Comparing The Differences In Access To Professional Development For General Education And Special Education Teachers And The Subsequent Impact On Instructional Practice, Lori L. Slater

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The demands on schools, teachers, and students continue to increase as greater accountability measures are put into place at all levels. For teachers to meet these increased demands, it is important that they be provided opportunities to improve and enhance their content knowledge and pedagogy. One way to ensure the provision of these opportunities for teachers is through professional development. There is significant evidence that professional development can improve instructional practice and student outcomes (Drago-Severson, 1994; Garet et al., 2001; Guskey, 2000; Sparks & Loucks-Horsley, 1989; Wei et al., 2010; Zhang et al., 2015). However, there continues to be a …

So It’S Not Like The Movies? An Analysis Of The Links Between Popular Culture, Motivation And Expectations In First-Year College Students, Kelle Snow

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The rising concern regarding the graduation rates of university students in the United States has led to research being conducted in order to establish possible relationships between environmental factors and the high attrition rates for first-generation college students pursuing a Bachelor’s degree at a four-year university. One factor to be examined is the portrayal of higher education in popular culture and the impact this has on students’ perceptions, and therefore motivation and expectations, when entering into a four-year program at a university. This study seeks to empirically identify if any such connection exists between the portrayal of higher education in …

High Utility Itemsets Identification In Big Data, Ashish Tamrakar

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

High utility itemset mining is an important data mining problem which considers profit factors besides quantity from the transactional database. It helps find the most valuable products/items that are difficult to track using only the frequent data mining set. An item that has a high-profit value might be rare in the transactional database despite its tremendous importance. While there are many existing algorithms which generate comparatively large candidate sets while finding high utility itemsets, the major focus is to reduce the computational time significantly with the introduction of pruning strategies. Another aspect of high utility itemset mining is to compute …

Characterization Of Dust On Solar Devices In Southern Nevada, Jason Sylva

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Dust can impact the efficiency of solar energy collection devices, and in some arid environments, dust can reduce solar energy efficiency up to 30%. Reducing the impact of dust is therefore critical in the expansion of solar technology throughout regions where solar energy is utilized. Characterization of suspended and settled particulate matter can assist in developing strategies for dust mitigation. With the characterization of suspended and settled particulate in remote, rural, and urban environments, more informed decisions can be made regarding the selection of coating material on solar panels as well as developing cleaning and maintenance procedures. Particulate matter that …

Implementation And Analysis Of Communication Protocols In Internet Of Things, Priyanka Thota

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Internet of Things (IoT) is the future of all the present-day devices around the globe. Giving them internet connectivity makes IoT the next frontier of technology. Possibilities are limitless as the devices communicate and interact with each other which make it even more interesting for the global markets. For example, Rolls-Royce announced that it would use the Microsoft Azure IoT suite and also the Intelligence suite of Cortana to keep track of the fuel usage, for performance analysis, to optimize the fly routes etc. which improves the airline efficiency. The devices must communicate with each other, the data from these …

Are Universities Providing Non-Stem Students The Mathematics Preparation Required By Their Programs?: A Case Study Of A Quantitative Literacy Pathway And Vertical Alignment From Remediation To Degree Completion, Charles Merritt Allen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Informed by Gagne's belief in the necessity of prerequisite knowledge for new learning, and Bruner's Spiral Curriculum Theory, the objective of this case study was to explore the postsecondary pathway from remedial mathematics, through one gateway mathematics course, and into the quantitative literacy requirements of various non-STEM programs of study. Particular attention was directed towards analyses of the vertical alignment of course content between: (1) the two consecutive remedial mathematics courses (Beginning Algebra and Intermediate Algebra), (2) the two remedial courses and the gateway course (Fundamentals of College Mathematics), and (3) the gateway course and the quantitative literacy needs of …

Table Of The Sun, Christine Bettis

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

My creative thesis is a 48-page collection of poems titled Table of the Sun. Each poem is an intimate interrogation of varied ecological, romantic, and/or political disasters ranging from the Dakota Access Pipeline, cruel love, and Donald Trump. Some poems are reckonings, and others work to heal trauma, heartache, clinical illness, and supernatural afflictions like those experienced by the Tarantati of Puglia. Some are combative, it's true. Water is everywhere and it is multitudinous as an agent of destruction, cleansing, and transformation, and as a life-giver. The collection was influenced by readings, lectures, and courses I've experienced at UNLV, including …

Price Prediction: Determining Changes In Stock Pricing Through Sentiment Analysis Of Online Consumer Reviews, Daryl F. Boykin

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The rapid growth of technology has changed the dynamics in which consumers socialize and make their purchasing decisions. The volume of online reviews has grown rapidly over the past decade, leading the peer groups of consumer to carry a disproportionate weight in the purchasing decision process. The sheer volume of reviews can be a daunting task for an operator to attempt to incorporate the reviews in their analysis. Sentiment analysis allows for large volumes of consumer reviews to be processed in a relatively easy, and time sensitive manner. The information contained in these reviews, the sentiment score, is the same …

Nonmonotonicity In Absolute And Relative Preferences For Real And Imagined Rewards, Nicholas Carfagno

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

A key assumption in many studies examining valuation of reward is that participants’ preferences for various rewards are meaningfully, monotonically ordered with respect to other possible rewards. However, this assumption has not been systematically tested. Two studies consisting of 74 undergraduates from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and 122 community members demonstrated nonmonotonic reward preferences when provided with parametrically varied reward magnitudes. Although deficits in reward processing are believed to be a key feature of depression, depressed participants were more willing to work hard for rewards and exhibited more monotonic reward preferences than non-depressed participants. Relative to imaginary rewards, …

Degree Constrained Triangulation Of Annular Regions And Point Sites, Bhaikaji Gurung

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Generating constrained triangulations of point sites distributed in the plane is a significant problem in computational geometry. We present theoretical and experimental investigation results for generating triangulations for polygons and point sites that address node degree constraints. We characterize point sites that have almost all vertices of odd degree. We present experimental results on the node degree distribution of Delaunay triangulations of point sites generated randomly. Additionally, we present a heuristic algorithm for triangulating a given normal annular region with an increment of even degree nodes.

Fast Neutron Detection In Nuclear Material Photofission Assay Using A 15 Mev Linear Electron Accelerator, Matthew Steven Hodges

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this research was to use a 15 MeV (K15 model by Varian) linear electron accelerator (linac) for the photon assay of special nuclear materials (SNM). First, the properties of the photon radiation probe were determined. The stochastic radiation transport code, MCNP5, was used to develop computational models for the linac. The spectral distribution of photons as well as dose rate contour maps of the UNLV accelerator facility were computed for several linac operating configurations. These computational models were validated through comparison with experimental measurements of dose rates.

The linac model was used to simulate the photon interrogation …

Generalized Clusterwise Regression For Simultaneous Estimation Of Optimal Pavement Clusters And Performance Models, Mukesh Khadka

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The existing state-of-the-art approach of Clusterwise Regression (CR) to estimate pavement performance models (PPMs) pre-specifies explanatory variables without testing their significance; as an input, this approach requires the number of clusters for a given data set. Time-consuming ‘trial and error’ methods are required to determine the optimal number of clusters. A common objective function is the minimization of the total sum of squared errors (SSE). Given that SSE decreases monotonically as a function of the number of clusters, the optimal number of clusters with minimum SSE always is the total number of data points. Hence, the minimization of SSE is …

Deployment Strategies For A Fleet Of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Providing Cellular And Data Services, Nima Mohseni

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Wireless voice and data communications have become an essential part of our day to day lives. In order to provide these services to as many people as possible, a great infrastructure has been put in place over the last two decades throughout the world. The current infrastructure is mainly consists of cellular towers with gateways to the telecommunication backbone. The wireless infrastructure is doing an adequate job of providing voice and data services, getting more powerful and efficient every day. However, because wireless infrastructure is mainly based on fixed cell towers, it lacks the flexibility and dynamism that may be …

Dynamic Risk Analysis Of Construction Delays Using Fuzzy-Failure Mode Effects Analysis, Mohammadsoroush Tafazzoli

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Considering the tremendous losses in the worldwide economy caused by construction delays, it is essential to invest in minimizing the risks of delays. In order to make this happen, two measures should be taken:

1) The roots and fundamental causes of delay should be identified and strategies to mitigate their risks be developed (General remedy).

2) The most significant potential causes of delay in each project should be identified and these causes should be given priority to control (Project-Specific Remedy).

The current research invests in both of the measures. To provide the general remedy, causes of delay in the construction …

Spectroscopic Signatures Of Uranium Speciation For Forensics, Nicholas Wozniak

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Chemical speciation offers opportunities for development of signatures that arise from the production, conversion, and aging processes of nuclear materials. This information has been useful for environmental science and remediation and the ability to measure chemical signatures, from processed materials may be of great use to nuclear forensics. Many nuclear forensics analyses deal with radiochronometry and isotopic analysis, but because processing is chemical in nature, there are opportunities for chemical signatures from the bulk products, reagents, or reaction intermediates to be measured.

Many spectroscopic techniques can be utilized in a remote setting outside of the laboratory, with minimal or no …

Practical Applications Of Revenue Management In Full Service Restaurants, Sean Aten

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Revenue management is the act of skillfully, carefully, and tactfully managing, controlling and directing capacity and sources of income, given the constraints of supply and demand (Forgacs, 2010). This field grew out of the yield management strategies developed for use in the airline industry beginning in the 1960s. They used data driven decision making to maximize revenues gained from every seat on every flight. The hospitality industry now views this field as one of the core competencies for successful profitability (Hayes & Miller, 2011). It is a multidisciplinary approach that blends elements of marketing, operations, and financial management to effectively …

An Elemental Highway: Investigation Of A High Nickel Anomaly In Olivine From The Island Of Niihau, Hawaii, Alexander James Valentine

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The study of volcanic geochemistry is one of the main gateways for investigating the Earth’s mantle. One important topic in the field is that of nickel (Ni) in the mineral olivine. While Ni is a compatible element in olivine, its high concentration at a given MgO content is not well understood. A variety of hypotheses have been proposed, including attributing presence of Ni to pyroxenite source melting, contribution from the core, or variation in peridotite source melting. In addition to the other hypotheses, chemical diffusion may also be a mechanism for enriching olivine Ni concentration. Magnesium-iron (Mg-Fe) isotopic measurements have …

Analog And Mixed Signal Verification Using Satisfiability Solver On Discretized Models, Nikita Ramesh Wanjale

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

With increasing demand of performance constraints and the ever reducing size of the IC chips, analog and mixed-signal designs have become indispensable and increasingly complex in modern CMOS technologies. This has resulted in the rise of stochastic behavior in circuits, making it important to detect all the corner cases and verify the correct functionality of the design under all circumstances during the earlier stages of the design process. It can be achieved by functional or formal verification methods, which are still widely unexplored for Analog and Mixed-Signal (AMS) designs.

Design Verification is a process to validate the performance of the …

Faculty Perceptions Of Student Recruitment And Retention In Stem Fields, Eshani Gandhi-Lee, Heather Skaza, Erica Marti, Peter G. Schrader, Marykay Orgill

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

According to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST, 2012), there is a need to produce one million more STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) graduates in the U.S. over the next decade. Thus, more students must be recruited into and retained in STEM degrees of study. Because faculty are considered influential in students' choices to pursue and remain in STEM disciplines, we interviewed university STEM faculty in order to identify their perceptions of student recruitment and retention in STEM fields. Our data indicate that faculty are generally unaware of or not worried about the need to …

Priority Hypertension Management Strategies For At-Risk African Americans As Perceived By Medical Clinicians And Academic Scholars, Shirley M. Timmons, Lu Shi, Amin Khademi

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

African American adults, in the United States (US), bear the greatest burden of high blood pressure (HBP)--a primary risk factor for cardiovascular disease and premature death. Current research does not adequately inform the design of multi-level interventions that work to control HBP in this at-risk population. The purpose of this study was to uncover information about priority strategies recommended for HBP control in African American adults. Research questions are 1) what are factors that reduce or manage HBP in at-risk African Americans and 2) what factors are important to the design and implementation of successful HBP interventions in at-risk African …

Diffusive Logistic Equations With Harvesting And Heterogeneity Under Strong Growth Rate, Saeed Shabani Rokn-E-Vafa, Hossein T. Tehrani

Mathematical Sciences Faculty Research

We consider the equation −Δu=au−b(x)u2−ch(x) in Ω,u=0 on ∂Ω, where Ω is a smooth bounded domain in RN, b(x) and h(x) are nonnegative functions, and there exists Ω0⊂⊂Ω such that {x:b(x)=0}=Ω¯¯¯0. We investigate the existence of positive solutions of this equation for c large under the strong growth rate assumption a≥λ1(Ω0), where λ1(Ω0) is the first eigenvalue of the −Δ in Ω0 with Dirichlet boundary condition. We show that if h≡0 in Ω∖Ω¯¯¯0, then our equation has a unique positive solution for all c large, provided that a is in a right neighborhood of λ1(Ω0). For this purpose, we prove …